Day in the Life of a Background Actor, Me!

My new hobby takes little to no talent beyond being able to listen closely and walk without falling. It’s open to all ages, ethnicities, shapes, sizes. I background act – does this street look familiar? I’m parked in Gaby’s Wisteria Lane driveway (“Desperate Housewives” now off the air) for a Halloween episode of an unrelated show. My car scored the booking. “Upscale cars needed: no black, white or red.” Then they had me trick or treat with little kid actors who, by the end of the day, were HIGH from sneaking the real candy from their pumpkin buckets.

“Straight out of Central Casting” is a real thing.

TV shows, movies, commercials have hundreds of people doing stuff in the background. Walking. Holding clipboards. Pretend talking. Jogging. Sipping coffee. Driving. “Extras” we used to be called. But someone decided that didn’t sound as important as the job is and upgraded the title to Background Actors. Yesterday on a shoot, they called us Background Celebrities.

If you ask me in person, I will tell you shows I’ve been on but for confidentiality agreement reasons, I would possibly be asking for trouble if I published them on the web.

Question #1 – Do you see the star actors? Sometimes no and other times you’re working in scenes with them. One movie scene was sitting in a restaurant full of other background, fake-chatting for few hours over progressively melting plates of dinner. Between the Principle Players and moi: a tree, followed by a tall flower arrangement, then another table of patrons. So, you won’t see ME in the movie unless there was a secret hidden camera somewhere else pointing in my direction.

Other movies, I flash right across the screen. Short flash, watch for the silver hair.

Question #3 — What is it exactly that you do? Here was my first day working on a detective show:

So after this full day, I recorded my episode at home to look for my car driving past the hotel, then me walking on the sidewalk, then me walking in the hotel lobby. NOT A SPECK OF ME ANYWHERE, lol! The classic cutting room floor…

Next, I taped another, and you CAN see Tiny Unfocused Me behind Amy’s left shoulder, see my little salt & pepper head?

Thank you so much for sharing this experience. I’ve been in a couple of small commercials (one by myself) for TV…but I, like others probably, have been very curious about this process. I often see ads for background actors. Sounds like a fun experience, though I’m sure tiring.